"i dig that goddamn rock'n'roll" -the cramps

apparently, paul collins has been keeping a tour diary while he's on the road with gentleman jesse and his men. i heard him reading it to jesse when we got up in the morning, but i thought it was secret. guess not, so go ahead and take a peek. he keeps referring to hotel hot trash as "erin's very cool rock'n'roll house." i like that. it's even better than the time eric from the jetty boys told me my house was like a museum. a museum of weird, useless crap. (he didn't say that part but i'm ad-libbing).






(when the okmoniks and nobunny stayed at my house, justin decided that out of all the junk in my house, this was his favorite thing. i always laugh when i see it.)


maybe you knew that yesterday, february 3, was the 50th anniversary of the day the music died. i miss buddy holly a lot. weird, right? what i find even more strange is that he was only 22 when he died, the big bopper was only 21, and ritchie valens was only 17. i always think of them as being older but i guess that's because i'm already way older than them now than they were at the time this happened. they were just fuckin KIDS, all of 'em.






seems like this day is going to be significant for a whole new generation of rock'n'roll fans, as the death of lux interior was announced today. i'm almost positive it happened yesterday, which would be appropriate enough. i saw the cramps a few years ago and admittedly i was not all that impressed. it still sucks because the cramps were such a unique and influential band. plus lux and ivy are notorious for having a sweet record collection and fan-fucking-tastic taste in r'n'r music in general -- all you gotta do is take a look at the kinda songs they chose to do covers of and you can't help but be grateful to them for making sure some of those songs saw the light of day again. AND because that live video of the cramps playing at the mental hospital is one of the best things i've ever seen.





R.I.P.
buddy holly
ritchie valens
j.p. "big bopper" richardson
lux interior

"zombies do have the ability to tell human flesh apart from that of animals." -the zombie survival guide

man, i LOVE this news story.







AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin drivers making their morning commute were in for a surprise when two road signs on a busy stretch of road were taken over by hackers. The signs near the intersection of Lamar and Martin Luther King boulevards usually warn drivers about upcoming construction, but Monday morning they warned of� "zombies ahead."

"I thought it was pretty funny," said University of Texas sophomore Jane Shin, who saw the signs while driving down Lamar Bouelvard with friends Sunday night. "We wondered who did it."

The City of Austin does not own the signs, but they are responsible for the message. The contractor on the construction project owns the signs. A city spokesperson said the hacked messages were only up for a few hours, until the construction project manager saw them during his morning commute and immediately ordered them to be changed back.

"Even though this may seem amusing to a lot of people, this is really serious, and it is a crime," said Austin Public Works spokesperson Sara Hartley. "And you can be indicted for it, and we want to make sure our traffic on the roadways stays safe."

Hartley said though it was a locked sign, the padlock for it was cut. Signs such as these have a computer inside that is password-protected.

"And so they had to break in and hack into the computer to do it, so they were pretty determined," said Hartley.

This crime is a class C misdemeanor in Texas, and Hartley said it endangers the public.

"The big problem is public safety," said Hartley. "Those signs are out there to help our traffic on the roadway to stay safe and to know what's coming up."

KXAN Austin News cameras caught many drivers slowing down to read the signs as they approached. Some read, "Zombies ahead! Run for your lives!"

Hartley said the city will discuss more secure safety measures with the manufacturer of the signs.

Speculation among the tech-savvy on the Internet is that the signs were inspired by the video game Call of Duty 5, World at War, which is the top game in the country right now and features "nazi zombies," or an upcoming movie about zombies called "Dead Snow" � (an official selection at Sundance '09). There are also several online sites that teach people how to break into these construction signs.

i wanna be with a rock'n'roll girl

i woke up this morning to see paul collins (of the paul collins beat/nerves) walking out of my bathroom with a towel tied around his waist, bare-chested, holding a mug of coffee and exclaiming, "ahhhhhhhhhhh!" like he was just waking up from the most comfortable nap of his life.

i don't know why but this kinda felt like i was watching a movie instead of living my life. it was similar to the time i got up in the morning and jeffrey novak (jeffrey novak one man band/the rat traps/cheap time) was walking through my house in his underwear. or the night i drove a minivan full of the blowtops singing the "strawberry shortcake" theme song - in unison - at the top of their lungs. or when i sat around eating popcorn and watching "peewee's playhouse" with holy shit! and i could still hear tony laughing in the living room even after i went to bed in my room. i could go on, but i won't. i don't mean to sound like a nerd, but sometimes for one minute, i forget that these people are just ordinary dudes like me. music just so happens to be my thing in life, but you can apply this to whatever hobby or interest is your favorite. if you were really into movies and woke up one morning to see samuel l. jackson laying on your couch all tucked in with your pink hello kitty blanket, you would understand. for a split second (or maybe even longer?) it would have to seem fake.

when stuff like this happens, the little voice in my head asks, "really?!?" and i have to supress a secret smile. i don't mean for this to come out sounding 'starstruck' or whatever you want to call it, because in a lot of cases these are people i would say i'm actually friends with. that doesn't mean there aren't moments when it seems surreal to be thrift shopping with nobunny or pretending to be in the band with vee dee so i could get into the rock hall for free. does this make sense? my passion for music is so intense that sometimes it seems somehow bigger than me, or out of my league. this is hard to articulate and i think i give up trying. still, it isn't every day that you accidentally walk in on paul collins changing into his pajama pants. oops.

i had an amazing time at the show we went to last night. short rabbits and uncle scratch's gospel revival represented cleveland as opening bands and i think paul made a good choice when booking them. gentleman jesse and his men were excellent and damn near played the entire new album. it sounded exactly like you were listening to the record, only bigger. like you were listening to the record through headphones the size of manhole covers.



paul collins played next, with gentleman jesse and his men backing him and acting as "the beat." it was fun. i never really thought i would see people enjoying a powerpop show in cleveland like that. it kept making me want to dance with josh and kiss his fucking face. but i didn't because that would have been cheesy. i also never expected to hear "walking out on love" live and it sounded so good to my heart. you know how sometimes you are so happy to experience something that it feels like your heart is smiling? like your heart kinda wants to explode? yeah, i love it when that happens, and this was one of those time. standing there holding hands with the cutest boy in the world and seeing paul collins perform "walking out on love" right before my eyes. i took a mental snapshot. i collect those.



i also dj'ed between bands, and i got more compliments in one night than all the times i've dj'ed at now that's class combined. it makes me feel like i can throw a good party (which is one of the most important things in life, i do believe). some kid i didn't know even blew me a kiss, which i rank right up there with the high fives and "everything you're playing is FUCKING AWESOME!" now, on to the next order of business: getting cleveland to dance.



after the show me and josh had a pajama & pasta party with paul collins, the men, and gentleman jesse (who is every bit the gentleman as his name implies, proven when i caught him washing my dishes for me in the morning). we sat around listening to wesley willis records and talking about the '70s when paul used to play at the old pirate's cove in the flats. everyone was so nice that i won't hold it against them for drinking weird tea that looked like it had potatoes floating in it.
(disclaimer: everyone was getting over the flu. and it was slices of ginger. not potato. but still.)

before we went to bed, i got mad at josh because he was a little bit drunk and he thought it was funny to keep poking me in the butt with a fork. i told him to stop and he kept doing it. i punched him and apparently didn't realize my own strength (or, more likely, he was DRUNK) and he stumbled backwards and stepped into the cats water bowl, spilling it all over the kitchen floor. it was actually hilarious but i did not think so at 4am. that also reminds me that the other day josh held my foot and licked it repeatedly and i became so traumatized that i forced him to use mouthwash immediately and i almost cried.

it was so gross.

best day ever

today ruled so hard.

it all started when josh called me at 7am to say that little richard is coming to town. I AM FINALLY GOING TO SEE LITTLE RICHARD! he will be at the moondog coronation ball this march along with peter noone of herman's hermits, tommy james and the shondells, three dog night and jerry butler. seen 'em all except rich. good 'ol richie. FUCK YES! now i just gotta see chuck berry and fats domino to feel complete.



so i believe i have little richard to thank for setting the tone of the day because everything that followed ruled just as much. the next thing was that i got my computer back after not having it for a week. my friend mike fixed it up so now it works "like butter!" (whatever that means). not having a computer for a week makes me CRAAAAZEEEEE. i finally have to admit what josh has teased me about all along: i am addicted. so sue me.

next up, my cute boyfriend came home and gave me a present for no reason at all. he found me these adorable anchor hair clips and he secretly ordered them and had them sent to his work so i wouldn't see them come in the mail. aw! he knows me so well it's nuts. not just my taste, but the fact that i dig surprises. too fucking cute.



THEN he insisted (absolutely INSISTED!) that he take me on a date. we went to dinner and had great cheeseburgers. i love burgers! and cheesecake for dessert! then we went to buy RECORDS! yay, rock'n'roll! and i got to use all my gift certificates from christmas so i didn't pay a damn cent!



and finally, the perfect way to end the date, we went to buy porn. found some real gems, like "vagina is for lovers," one about nerdy girls wearing glasses (??), one called "mysexspace" (HA!) and the best one we could find, titled "white trash pieces of shit." oh man. can't wait to sit down with a bowl of popcorn for THOSE.



ended the perfect day by announcing the horriblefest 4 lineup, which is very exciting to me. can't wait to see bands like kajun ss, the ladies, the stitches, livefastdie, magnetix, holy shit!, shoot it up, etc. mark your calendars for april 30th-may 2nd! cleveland is about to get a whole lot more horrible.

pogo machine

the other day, pogo decided to hide from everyone.




























she is the baddest little kitten i have ever seen in my life. she was born around the time josh and i started dating, so she is about 7 months old.







seven months old and baaaaaaaaaaad.

"love has no middle term; either it destroys or it saves." -victor hugo

it all started with this little pumpkin.



i found it while unpacking a box of stuff at work. i put it in the cart for my friend heather to price after remarking how cute it was.

"oh, just get it!" she told me, but i held my ground. i'm trying to stop buying junk i don't need because --as sad as this sounds -- i'm running out of room in my house. because i really needed that ceramic monkey bank from the 60s, and yet another record player so that i can have one in every room, ya know?





but the more i thought about it, the more this nagging feeling told me otherwise.

"um, i think i want that pumpkin," i admitted sheepishly. heather laughed, knowing neither one of us can stand the temptation of more useless crap for our house, and took it out of her cart to hand it over.

"you know, THIS is why our boyfriends think we're crazy!" she said. i almost agreed with her, before reconsidering and telling her, "actually, my boyfriend is THE REASON i think i need this dumb thing. having him around makes me want to go home and cook a real dinner every night, and decorate my house for the holidays and stuff." she nodded like she understood, although i'm not really sure she did because she has been with her boyfriend for years and always acts like she doesn't like him.

regardless, that was the realization i came to with the ceramic pumpkin in my hand: josh makes me want to decorate the house at halloween (and various other actions i never thought i would be doing, like cooking gumbo for goodness sakes) because being with him makes the house feel like a home. WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE???

i just read a blog my friend lacey wrote that was similar in mush factor. what are these boys doing that is turning us tough rock'n'roll gals into a regular ol' mashed potato fest? i want to act like i'm completely alarmed, but the truth is, it feels niiiiiiiiiice. it feels like the time my car got snowed in the driveway when i was trying to leave for work in the morning, and finally i had to abandon post, ditch the idea of work for that day, and realize there was nothing else i had to do besides get my frostbitten ass in a steaming hot bubble bath. yeah, that's a lot like what this relationship feels like. i endured the blizzard and now i'm laying back in the tub with a book in one hand and one of those comfy inflatable pillows behind my head. ahhhhhh. thanks, josh.

the first time we officially met, we were at the beachland tavern. i'm not 100% positive, but something tells me we were there to see joe buck. i was with someone else that i was dating at the time. i can't remember if things were unhappy between us yet or not, but eventually they would become painfully so. my friend bob introduced josh to me by pulling him over and lifting up his shirt to show the tattoo of the southern states that he did on josh's stomach. josh didn't bat an eye at his friend introducing him to a couple of strangers that way, and he walked away. he was probably drunk. i recognized him immediately. i had seen him around at various shows here and there, and always wondered who the cute little boy was, but never had the nerve to approach him and find out. later i would learn that he was dating someone else at the time too. they were together for several years, and were almost certainly at the point of unhappiness by the time bob introduced us that night.

months went by. nothing happened. he was living almost an hour away and he didn't venture out to cleveland much unless it was for a show. i was still living back at home with my parents. i invited him to a couple things i thought he might enjoy: a one man band i booked at now thats class, a zombie walk my friend was organizing. of course, i knew these things might interest him because i learned about him on myspace like everyone does these days. in the meantime, my ex and i broke up. i figured he was still seeing someone, but wasn't sure. i decided to take a chance. i sent him a message asking if he wanted to watch "wild zero," my favorite zombie movie. he wrote back sure. a few days later, he wrote again and told me i was being out of line and he didn't think we should hang out after all. i was devastated. even moreso when i realized he deleted me off his friends list. OUCH!

6 months or so went by. i moved into a place of my own. one night in june the band lifetrap was playing a show at now thats class and i decided to go. i was sitting alone on the purple couch because johnny, my concert buddy, had decided a few months earlier that he was "too old" to stay out at shows anymore. i was used to going solo, but didn't like to socialize and spent a lot of time sitting by myself between bands. as i sat there people watching, i could have SWORN i saw josh walk past me and go out the front door. i told myself it probably wasn't him, because i never saw him hanging out there before. he walked back in and we made eye contact. i was humiliated because he snubbed me the way he did months earlier. he sat down next to me and asked with a smile, "so...are we ok?" confused yet smiling because of how lame i knew it was about to sound, i told him, "i don't know, you're the one that deleted me off your myspace." he told me his girlfriend had done it. the girlfriend he was dating back when we met. the girlfriend he was living with, who would go onto his account when he wasn't home and answer his messages pretending to be him. the girlfriend he was no longer dating.

"i quit my job this morning and i'm moving to cleveland," he told me as we sat there. i wondered how soon. "tomorrow," he said laughing. he didn't have a plan about where he was moving or where he would live. all he knew is that he got to work that morning, decided he never wanted to go in again, and drove home. he put in notice at his apartment complex, threw away a bunch of furniture, left a note for his ex (who was still living in the apartment at the time, but was out of the country on vacation), and was in cleveland that night with a friend, talking about moving there in the morning. ha. i knew this kid was crazy. but i also wondered, how weird is that? it's like we were waiting for each other.

we sat on the couch together all night long, only getting up to go in the other room and watch the bands. i noticed (while trying not to get too excited!) that every time i went in a room, i would turn to find josh standing right next to me. when the bands played and things got crazy, he would stand in front of me and make sure i didn't get hit in the head with any flying bottles or garbage cans. i wasn't sure if he kept ending up by me on accident or on purpose. before i left, i handed him a flier. it was for the nobunny/okmoniks show that i booked at the tower the next night. i was afraid he would leave now thats class and it would be months again before we ran into each other. "you should go to this," i told him. he took the flier but i honestly didn't expect to see him again.

the next night i went to see nobunny and the okmoniks, and it was one of the most fun shows i've ever been to. i decorated it like a party with balloons and streamers to surprise them, and they loved it and told me it was one of the best shows on the tour so far.







imagine my surprise when who should stumble in but josh. i couldn't believe he came. he told me much later that he had no real interest in the show (although he did end up enjoying it), but he came because he wanted to see me again. i guess you could call the rest history. that was almost seven months ago, and we have been inseparable since. in those 7 months, we have only spent one day apart (and that was the night he got drunk and accidentally passed out in his grandma's upstairs hallway instead of coming over. ha. he couldn't hear the phone ringing downstairs while i called him all night long, thinking he was dead. good thing we can look back on that now and laugh).

we were only hanging out (every spare minute of the day, but still) for about two weeks when i told him i wanted him to have a key to my place. it seems crazy, but it felt like the right thing to do. i tend to follow my heart instead of my head. he was moved in by the third month. by now, i don't know what i would do without waking up and falling asleep next to him every day.

things fell into place and felt completely natural right from the start. in fact, some things seem like such uncanny coincidences that it prompts me to believe this HAD to happen. this was meant to happen. we were meant to happen.



i have never been with someone who is so perfect for me. and when i think about all the things i would want a person to be/say/do...it really doesn't get any better than this. josh is my other half and one of the greatest people i have ever met. i am so in love with this boy and his friendship is the most important thing in the world to me.

and that is why i had to buy this little teddy bear wearing a devil costume bobbing for apples to put out come october.



thanks a lot, boyfriend.



"genuine romantic love is much more than mere stupefying and intoxicating sex haze...true romantic love is real love. the characteristic mark of the experience, as in the case of all loving, is the blinding revelation that some other being can be more important to the lover than he is to himself."
-j.v.l. casserley

helllllllllllllo, baby.

this is not the big bopper speaking, but that's cool.

i did not start this with the intention of creating a music blog, but so far that's what every reference has to do with. either way, since music is such a huge part of my life, i'm sure it will end up being a huge part of this as well.

to begin: the blog title is from a song - "trash you up" by the manikins. the photo at the top is from a nobunny show at the tower this past summer in june of 2008.

i'm here because this is something that i need to do. more specifically: writing is something i have done my whole life long, and it is something i am extremely comfortable with. i first kept a diary somewhere around third grade when my grandma bought matching ones for me and my two cousins, who were about my same age. i kept the diary periodically throughout my childhood, with large gaps in between when i would forget it existed. months or years would go by, until the next time i unlocked the book with the little gold key to give an update about which boy in my class i had a crush on (always kevin v. or mike w.) or what family gossip was juicy enough to note (uncle wayne secretly ran away to west virginia and got married). i also made sure to write about all the interesting things i accomplished during the course of the day (watching "causbee" on tv or eating pizza for dinner).

on january 1, 1997, my cousin beth and i decided we would both start the new year off by keeping nightly journals. 12 years later, and it is still a part of my bedtime ritual. i have a trunk full of spiral notebooks filled with the blood, sweat and tears that made up (most of) my teenage and young adult life. scary sometimes, sure, but also something i'm glad i did and i wish i would have done sooner.

i had an old online diary that i kept through most of my college years. it documented my first serious relationship, my first major heartbreak, the first time i moved out on my own, and all the ups and downs in between. recently i thought about going back there, but i decided it was best to leave it buried and start fresh. i'm not anxious to revisit some of those memories any time soon, and (as always) some of it is just downright embarrassing to look back on. ha.

so there you have it. and here i am. although i update the blog feature on myspace pretty often, a lot of times i feel like i am censoring myself since i never know who might be reading. to be safe, i think you just have to assume that EVERYONE on your friends list is reading it, and that makes me nervous sometimes. the same can be true for anything posted on the internet, but myspace just makes it seem so much more impersonal. at least this way i feel like i have the slightest bit of privacy, if that makes any sense.

i might like to use this new journal to talk about records that came out or shows i went to or bands that slept over. i might want to write about a good book i just finished, or a new recipe i cooked for the first time (since i now have a boy living with me, cooking has become something of a new hobby). i probably will want to talk about the boy that is living with me, because for the first time in my life i feel like a complete human being who didn't know something was missing in the first place. but regardless of what i end up talking about here, it's still going to be me: brutally honest and unashamed about my feelings and thoughts at this point in my life...a place where i will never exactly be again, but hopefully i will be able to look back on with a smile on my face.